Look out Florida and Texas — Tennessee wants a slice of New York City’s pie, too. 

Nashville is emerging as yet another pro-business powerhouse poised to take jobs away from the Big Apple — as socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani pushes tax hikes and other policies critics say are driving companies to flee, the head of an influential New York business group warned Sunday. 

“I think the most important thing as we get into the latter portion of this year is that the City Council starts to think about the fact, with the mayor, that New York City is on a trajectory that we’re less and less competitive every single day,” Steve Fulop, CEO of the Partnership for the City of New York, said Sunday on 77 WABC Radio’s “Cats Roundtable.” 

“Dallas and Miami and Nashville are actively pushing strategies to take jobs away from [NYC],” Fulop told the show host and billionaire businessman John Catsimatidis. 

The warning comes as a growing number of financial heavyweights and major corporations have already begun shifting their workforces to lower-cost states – while Mamdani, a democratic socialist who campaigned on a freebie-filled progressive agenda, continues floating a menu of tax increases. 

His proposals include higher income taxes on the wealthy, increased estate taxes and steeper corporate levies. 

But taxes aren’t the only factor pushing businesses across state lines, according to Fulop. 

“I’m not only talking about taxes, [but] bureaucracy and layers of reporting and more difficulty to run a business,” he said. 

“All of that stuff layers on top of one another and makes it pretty difficult to run a business in New York City.”

The concerns aren’t just hypothetical. 

Earlier this year, Wall Street giant Apollo Global Management revealed plans to establish a second US headquarters somewhere in the Sunbelt – with Nashville landing on a shortlist, alongside locations in Texas and South Florida. 

While Apollo execs have yet to announce a final decision, the new office is expected to employ 1,000 people — matching the company’s New York workforce. 

The $900 billion asset management firm paid roughly $1.28 billion in total income taxes in NYC in 2025. 

Music City has become increasingly attractive to other corporate giants across the US. 

Seattle-based coffee giant Starbucks, for example, reportedly pledged to invest $100 million and bring 2,000 jobs to a major new corporate hub in Nashville. 

Global investment management firm AllianceBernstein helped pave the way by relocating its headquarters from the Big Apple to Nashville in 2021. 

Other billionaire executives have been outspoken about their frustrations with Mamdani – and plans to flee Gotham. 

Citadel founder Ken Griffin, along with Apollo CEO Marc Rowan, both warned they were prepared to remove thousands of jobs out of New York as a “direct consequence” of Mamdani’s “tax the rich” crusade. 

The backlash kicked off after Hizzoner posted a cringe-worthy social media video featuring Griffin’s $238 million Midtown penthouse as a backdrop. 

An outraged Griffin first threatened to scrap a $6 billion Park Avenue development for his hedge fund before publicly announcing that the “creepy” video had pushed him to expand Citadel’s hub in Florida instead. 

“We will add far more jobs in Miami over the next decade as an immediate and direct consequence of the mayor’s poor decision here with respect to his posting of that video,” Griffin said.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs is pouring $500 million into a sprawling new campus for over 5,000 employees in Dallas.

Mamdani’s rhetoric risks the loss of 2,700 jobs in the financial industry and $168 million in state and city tax revenue every year, the Partnership for New York City estimated last month.